Bruce Bochy: OK to legalize pine tar for pitchers

Pine tar isn’t steroids. It’s not human growth hormone or amphetamines. It’s not sandpaper. Or a nail file. Or emery board. Or thumb tack. Or foreign substance such as Vaseline or K-Y Jelly or hair grease or whatever else is used to make a pitch swerve all kinds of funny ways.

Pine tar is banned for pitchers, nonetheless, even if it’s more about improving a grip to improve command, especially on cold days, and don’t batters want pitchers to have command to limit the errant pitches to the cranium?

Amid the fallout from Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda’s flagrant use of pine tar and the belief that its use is widespread, why not legalize it?

Asked if he believes pine tar should be legalized for pitchers, Giants manager Bruce Bochy said, “I do. You get out there some of these (cold) days and try to throw batting practice, you could hardly grip the ball. So you know what the pitcher’s going through.

“I would have no problem if they had something out there besides just the rosin bag to help them get a better grip. If you look at hitters, they can use everything. Guards, gloves, pine tar. It can take 10 minutes to get the gear out.

“If there were something like a pine-tar rag, uniform for every team so you know every team’s using the same thing, I don’t think there’d be anybody who’d be against that,” Hudson said after beating Cleveland Friday night. “It would be for nights like tonight, chilly.”

Rosin doesn’t always help with the grip, according to Hudson, who said, “Rosin is chalky, and when it’s cold, the last thing you need is something chalky on your hands.”

Of course, hitters would gripe if pitchers got an extra edge. An argument could be made that it’s not just about the grip. It’s about more spin. On Twitter, Dwight Gooden wrote that pine tar provides more sharpness to breaking pitches and more movement to sinkers.

For now, pine tar is accepted as long as pitchers are discreet, which Peneda wasn’t. It’s an unwritten rule that teams don’t rat out an opposing pitcher because they probably have a few users themselves. Just don’t be blatant.

Pretty silly.

Then there’s Rays manager Joe Maddon’s idea. Realizing the states that decriminalized a certain recreational pastime, Maddon tweeted, “I’m in favor of legalizing pine tar, but its usage may have to begin with the Rockies and Mariners.”